Thermal printing systems use a thermal print element energized to heat specific and precise areas of a heat sensitive paper to provide an image of readable characters or graphics on the heat sensitive paper. The heat sensitive paper, also known as thermal paper, includes material(s) which is reactive to applied heat. The thermal paper is a self-contained system, referred to as direct thermal, wherein ink need not be applied. This is advantageous in that providing ink or a marking material to the writing instrument is not necessary.
Thermal printing systems typically include point of sale (POS) devices, facsimile machines, adding machines, automated teller machines (ATMs), credit card machines, gas pump machines, electronic blackboards, and the like. While the aforementioned thermal printing systems are known and employed extensively in some fields, further exploitation is possible if image quality on thermal paper can be improved.
Some thermal papers produced by thermal printing systems suffer from low resolution of written image, limited time duration of an image (fading), delicacy of thermal paper before printing (increasing care when handling, shipping, and storing), and the like.